Here are 5 ways to use LinkedIn to boost traffic:

#1 Your Profile. I love the profile on LinkedIn. You can gather enough info about someone and decide whether to connect or not based on this snapshot.

If you want to connect with other professionals- make sure you have a real picture of you and not your company logo, dog, cat, kids … LinkedIn is a professional network.

#2 New Contacts. Once I’m connected with a new contact I can see her/his contacts which gives me an additional view of my new contact’s contacts.

#3 LinkedIn Groups. Use this feature to find people that share similar interests as you and become a member.

#4 Weekly LinkedIn Updates is a summary of what my contacts have been up to i.e. new groups they’ve joined and new contacts they’ve made. I’ve joined new groups and made new connections based on these updates.

#5 Skills & Expertise, a new feature I recently discovered. This allows you choose the area of expertise that you want more info on – let’s say attraction marketing – and the profiles of members that best fit this category are displayed.

It’s a great resource to connect with people in your niche market. Or reach out to experts.

Also listed are the groups associated with skills and expertise. This feature zeros in on your specific area of interest so you’re connecting with people in your niche business.

Once you’re a member of the group, you can interact on the group’s discussions, check out the member’s profile, reply privately to a comment they’ve made, or ask to be connected.

This is how the comment I left on a recent TechCrunch blog (with the new Facebook Comment plugin) is published on my Facebook Profile wall.

Facebook Likes Button Clicks Go to News Feed: When your readers Like something on your website, this now generates an update on their news feeds that looks like Facebook Share. It appears as if you’ll only need one Facebook button on your blog or website in the future: the Facebook Like button.

I Liked these pages on these websites and this is how the updates show up on my Facebook Profile and in my friends’ news feeds on Facebook.

LinkedIn Groups Guarantee Relevant Jobs Listing: The Jobs tab in LinkedIn Groups is now tailored specifically for the group. “All these jobs are either shared into the group by its members, or match keywords specified by the group manager, so they’re guaranteed to be relevant.”

LinkedIn Group managers can improve the experience for their members with job listings more targeted to their group.

Google Enhances User Profiles: Google Profiles have been around for a while to help you “connect to other public online services and improve your search results.” The new design lets you “highlight the information that’s most important to you.”

Check out the latest options to present yourself on Google Profiles.

Here are a few new social media tools worth a look.

Spreaker: an audio platform that allows anyone to create, broadcast and share a personal radio show across the Internet in a simple and accessible way.

With Spreaker, casual podcasters and bloggers have an easy way to keep in touch with their audience by audio.

fflap: a social selling tool for eBay to help sellers reach more people and sell their items faster.

Social shopping tools like fflap help businesses leverage their social networks.

uQR.me: you can create a unique QR code and a profile page where you can easily change, update or replace the code’s content any time you want.

uQR.me is a free social utility designed to share web content with the real world, letting you turn just about anything into a link: a wall, a tree, a shop window, a t-shirt, a pin, a concert poster, a wine bottle, a business card, your own body, the sky’s the limit…